The report provides a review of the hard and soft costs of achieving LEED Certified, Silver and Gold ratings for two common GSA building types. The two buildings compared in the study — a new mid-rise federal courthouse and a mid-rise federal office building modernization — reflect a significant portion of GSA's planned projects over the next five to 10 years.
An analysis, including DOE.2 energy modeling, was performed to identify green building measures above and beyond those included in GSA's standards that would likely be implemented to meet the specific LEED ratings. From these measures, the design and construction costs were estimated for each prerequisite and credit, with variations defined for the courthouse and office building models. For each rating, "low" and "high" cost scenarios were developed in order to bracket LEED costs. For example, the estimated differential in hard costs for the new courthouse (where hard costs include material, equipment and labor) are: Certified: Low (-0.4 percent), High (+1.0 percent); Silver: Low (-0.03 percent), High (+4.4 percent); Gold: Low (+1.4 percent), High (+8.1 percent). The report also includes analysis of soft costs.
The study was prepared by Steven Winter Associates, Inc., with cost estimating support provided by Skanska USA Building, Inc.
The study can be downloaded from the Whole Building Design Guide Web site (www.wbdg.org).
